Tu-154 flying from Tel Aviv apparently "explodes" with 77 on board, renewing fears of terrorism (273 words)

Published: 10/4/2001

A Tu-154 belonging to Siberia Airlines en route from Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport to Novosibirsk with 70 passengers and crew onboard, is reported to have exploded and crashed into the Black Sea. The explosion was reported to have been seen by the crew of an Armenian Airlines An-24 that was following the aircraft into Russian airspace and had then circled the crash site and reported wreckage in the the sea. President Putin is reported to have demanded an immediate investigation and the country's security services said terrorism could not be ruled out as a cause of the crash. The aircraft was reported to have gone down 190 kms off the Russian coastal city of Adler. Russian rescue helicopters and ships are in the area hunting for survivors in 1000m waters. Vasily Yurchuk, a spokesman for the Ministry of Emergency Situations, confirmed that the plane, Flight 1812, was flying from Tel Aviv to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. The aircraft took off from Ben Gurion Airport just before 10am local time crashing at 9.35am GMT. Security at Ben Gurion airport is notoriously stringent, but the plane had made a stopover in Burgas in Bulgaria, where it apparently took on 15 additional passengers. The stop over in Bulgaria is already arousing suspisions, as according to the authorities it was not a scheduled stop for the "regular" charter flight that flew every Thursday from Israel to Novosibirsk.

Article ID: 2800